From the Archives: A Right to Hunt in the Bribri Indigenous Territory, Talamanca, Costa Rica

In 2012, I lived in Talamanca, Costa Rica. There, I was fortunate to collaborate with a group of women and men who taught me about living off the land. These are the people who have taught me most about Indigenous rights, particularly those rights related to the management of natural resources and food.

Courtesy of Google Maps

The Bribri people have lived in Talamanca since time immemorial. In 1977, the Costa Rican government created a Reserva Indigena for the Talamanca Bribri people (43,690 hectares) and appointed local governments for this Bribri Territory. In 1982, “La Amistad International Park” was created bordering and overlapping with the Bribri Indigenous Territory. Also in 1982, La Amistad International Park and the Bribri Territory were proclaimed a United Nations Biosphere Reserve called La Reserva Biosfera La Amistad. 

In 2012, I worked with people from the Kalom ã community. For many of my colleagues in this community hunting was a way of life. People hunted for many reasons that are themselves are connected. For example, hunting was a way of finding foods and medicines but it was also recreation. In addition, walking hunting paths was a way of teaching youth about the land.

My colleagues taught me that hunting was as a process whereby people communicate with beings in other worlds to ask permission to take animals. These beings include Sibö̀ (the creator) and other beings that protect animals. Asking permission to hunt is one way to show respect for Sibö̀ and other beings. Another way of respecting these beings is to hunt only what they need for food or medicine. For example, the Kalom ã residents I worked with, both young and Elder, explained that they did not hunt and sell forest meat. Instead, animals are hunted for household consumption and sharing among families. 

Kalom ã residents' access to hunting was affected by the hunting law that was implemented when the La Amistad protected area was created. This hunting law has resulted in a management plant that dictates what people can hunt, where they can hunt, and how hunting should take place. Specifically, there is only one area of the protected area where Bribri hunting is permitted and even then, they can only hunt animals that are not endangered and they can only hunt using traditional bow and arrow techniques; this despite the fact that many people use rifles and have done so for many years. 

Bribri people have acted differently towards protected area hunting regulation. For example, some of my colleagues explained to me that the hunting ban was the reason why they no longer hunt. A few female colleagues shared that because of these laws they are scared to send their sons out to hunt. For other residents, the hunting ban did not stop them from hunting. 

Generally speaking, the hunting ban was not well received. One reason it was not well received was because it was imposition on Bribri people's rights to food. I learned how Bribri people have their own ways of thinking about hunting and living off the land that are different from the Costa Rican government's ways of managing forests. In fact, Kalom ã Elders created what they call the original hunting laws. These original hunting laws resulted from meetings among Bribri Elders who had convened to talk about hunting rules, based on Bribri values, because of their concern about changes in animal populations in their communities. Although Elders hunting laws were being observed in Kalom ã when the Costa Rican government hunting ban went into effect, these Elders laws were not considered in protected area managment. 

Another reason hunting bans have not been well received is because they minimize the importance of traditional authority and Indigenous decision-making mechanisms. The original Elder hunting laws are a case in point. Although these Bribri laws existed before the Costa Rican state hunting ban, the Elders laws, recommendations, and teachings were not considered in the Costa Rican state legislation.

On the other hand, there are some Kalom ã residents that support aspects of the hunting ban. For example, one Elder explained that government laws might help to control hunting by people who live outside of Coroma but go there to hunt animal meat for sale; this Elder made it clear that these laws should, however, not be applied to all aspects of Indigenous hunting because hunting, sharing, and eating forest meat is part of what it means to be Bribri.

When I gave a presentation on this topic earlier this year at the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation (ATBC) conference in San Jose, Costa Rica, I received both positive and negative feedback. Some conference attendees were keen to discuss how to best respect the rights to food of Bribri people living in and around protected areas. Other attendees were concerned that Indigenous rights to food were not compatible with aspects of biodiversity conservation legislation. One attendee said it was unlikely that conservation biologists would ever accept hunting in protected areas, especially when endangered species are being hunted. Although the hunting of endangered species is a valid concern, it is important to acknowledge that hunting is a right for Indigenous people in Costa Rica. And, this right is not limited to the act of hunting; it includes the right to making decisions about how to manage Bribri food systems.

All too often we focus on one way of looking at land-use. In the case of my recent conference experience, I learned that many people strongly associate protected forests with conservation of biological species. So, how can we have a discussion about different ways of understanding the land? One way is to think about it from a human rights perspective. As a researcher, it is my goal to use my research to help the public become familiar with human rights to land, to food, and to decision-making. And, I hope the more familiar we are with human rights policies, the better chance we have of convincing policy makers to act on them. 

The Ethnobotany of Costa Rica's Palms

In Costa Rica, I am known as "chica del palmito" or, the heart of palm girl. I was given this nickname by heart of palm harvesters, national park employees, and univesrity professors while conducting research for my Masters degree and some how the name stuck. But my interest in palms runs deeper than heart of palm; palms are a group of plant species that provide unique sources of food and medicine for people all over the world. In this blog post, I will share a few ways people use palms for food, not only did I study this topic for my Masters research but it was also a part of my Ph.D. For more information on how people use palms, check out our article here.

Eating palm flowers 

Palm inflorescence on top of chopped heart of palm

Palm flowers are edible. But, because palm flowers are often very tiny, people harvest and eat the whole flowering structure, called an inflorescence (see picture on right). So instead of having palm flower salad, you can strir fry, boil, or roast the whole inflorescence. One of the species commonly eaten in rural costa rica is Chamaedorea tepejilote.

While working with Indigenous people in Costa Rica, I learned that people eat palm flowers from many palm species. My favorite palm flower dish was prepared with inflorescences from the versatile peach palm (Bactris gasipaes; pictured above). I first tried this dish while living with a Bribri family and learned the dish was a favorite of Bribri Elders. I like the fact that palm inflorescences are edible because palms produce many of them in their lifetimes; and, you do not have to chop down a whole tree to harvest them. I do require help, however, to harvest an inflorescence for palm species that grow tall. In the case of peach palm, chopping down an inflorecence requires a large pole and it requires careful attention to the stiff peach palm spines that can easily make harvesting unpleasant.  

Drinking Palm wine 

Making wine usually takes a lot of work, from smashing the grapes to fermenting the final product. But palm wine, on the other hand, can be harvested directly from the plant and does not require too much extra processing. Palm wine is basically the natural sap of the palm which is harvested and left to ferment. 

Harvesting palm wine from the Coyol palm (Acrocomia aculeata) is popular in the Pacific side of Costa Rica as well as other areas of Central America. But, to harvest quality palm wine, farmers explained to me that you must work in concert with lunar cycles. To ensure a good harvest of wine you should extract palm sap three days before or after a full moon. 

I first tried palm wine while driving through the Guanacaste province of Costa Rica. During March and April you can buy this wine along the road side, but I chose to seek out a family who produced it at their home. Back in 2008, I was invited to join this family for a cold glass of off-white coloured palm sap. I had two options, with or without sugar. I opted for wine with no sugar added and surprisingly it had a sweet and tart taste. The idea of palm wine reminds me of maple syrup because it is a product produced entriely by a plant and its consumption requires only modest processing by people.

Eating palm hearts

Palm hearts are a unique food that are harvested from the inside of a palm tree stem. Large-scale palm farms can be found in Ecuador, Costa Rica, and Brazil and these farms supply canned heart of palm to supermarkets all over the world. Eating farmed heart of palm is like eating farmed bananas, these species are grown to be harvested and exported. 

The most commonly farmed palm species is the peach palm (Bactris gasipaes). But, in the tropics you can feast on multiple species of palm heart each with their own unique flavour. Some species are bitter and others are sweet, some even taste rich like butter. Many of these palm species are wild. Eating wild palm species is an activity that rural peoples have done for hundreds, or in some cases, thousands of years. Unfortunately, eating these unique wild species has caught on with some upscale businesses in Latin America and resulted in uncontrolled harvesting of wild species. 

In Costa Rica, I worked on the issue of uncontrolled harvesting of palms that occur in forest areas. This is a particularly complex issue. Palms are often harvested from protected forests and by Costa Rican law this is illegal. This makes sense to me for people who are harvesting bags of hundreds of palm hearts to sell in high end restaurants; it does not make sense, to me, for people who harvest only a few palms to eat with their families. Currently, to my knowledge harvesting foods in protected forests in Costa Rica is still illegal and this is something that I have been analyzing with Indigenous peoples as part of my Ph.D.

Food Challenge: What is this Wild Fruit from Latin America?

This fruit is one of the most important foods used by Indigenous peoples in Latin America. Recent nutritional studies have described this fruit as a source of: protein, fat, powerful antioxidants, and many micronutrients, including selenium the nutrient famous for its mood enhancing potential. And, this fruit is not only enjoyed by humans but by animals such as chickens, squirrels, peccaries and paca.  

Readers, what is this fruit?

Please share your answers in the comments section below (if you have problems signing in to comment, let me know). Don’t forget to tell us how you learned about this fruit. If you’ve tried it, tell us what it tastes like too. 

Guest Post: Conservation Policy and Rights to Hunt in the Bribri Indigenous Territory, Costa Rica

In response to my last post on Bribri Hunting Rights in Costa Rica my colleague, Jacy Bernath-Plaisted, wrote a thoughful response: 

Costa Rica’s national parks system is frequently cited as a great success story in the struggle for conservation in developing nations. However, the development of these preserves has brought conservation into conflict with Costa Rica’s Indigenous peoples. One recent instance of this has been the institution of a national hunting ban on the ancestral lands of the Bribri people. While this may be a well-intended attempt to promote conservation, it is a mistake to enforce blanket national policies on land belonging native peoples. Instead, I argue that a more multi-faceted, context specific kind of management is required both to preserve biodiversity and the rights of Costa Rica’s Indigenous peoples.

A - The Bribri Talamanca Territory

The implementation of the national hunting ban on Bribri lands is problematic for two reasons.  The first is quite straightforward: Costa Rica has ratified C169, a legally binding international document that guarantees Indigenous peoples the right to utilize natural resources on their own lands, as well as participate in management decisions regarding those resources. Therefore, by enforcing the hunting ban on Bribri land, the Costa Rican government has acted contrary to laws of its own making. The problem is further compounded when one considers that land ownership and use are often essential in the self-identification of Indigenous peoples, and that hunting plays an integral role in traditional Bribri culture and spirituality. It is neither ethical nor likely to foster good relations to disregard these

concerns. 

Still, this is not to say that the idea of restricting hunting is wholly inappropriate. Generally speaking, the national hunting ban can be viewed as a positive venture. For example, Costa Rica’s protective environmental policies have already contributed to the recovery of endangered species such as the Green turtle. A hunting ban is an appropriate policy on land owned by the Costa Rican government where populations are higher, cultural norms are different, and presumably, there is an overhunting problem. Yet, it is not clear that Bribri land fits any of these criteria. In fact, there does not appear to be research available on whether or not biodiversity is in jeopardy on these lands at all. A more fruitful, multi-management, approach to conservation on indigenous lands might look like this: 1) prevent outsiders from hunting on Bribri land, 2) allow the Bribri to continue traditional hunting of non-threatened species on their lands, and 3) determine which species on Bribri land may be at risk and engage the community in a dialogue regarding the voluntary cessation of hunting on those species. This approach would not only preserve the rights and dignity of the Bribri, but would also likely prove more effective in preserving biodiversity. Schelhas and Pfeffer (2005) found that engaging Indigenous and rural peoples in a discourse about environmental issues changed their beliefs and left them more willing to cooperate with conservation efforts.

Regardless, those who are deeply concerned about conservation may find this process too slow, and perhaps too lenient with respect to the hunting of endangered species; it could be argued that hunting these species for recreational purposes is never acceptable. This point of view is not unreasonable. However, the reality is, the hunting ban is nearly impossible to enforce on native lands, both because of the rugged nature of the land, and lack of manpower. Presently, the hunting ban has not stopped hunting on Bribri land.          

Though there is good reason to enforce strong national polices with respect to conservation, it must be recognized that national policies are not always optimal at the local level. In such cases, more specific policies built on cooperation and mutual respect between government and communities are essential to a positive outcome.      

My name is Jacy Bernath-Plaisted, and I’m currently studying for my masters in natural resource management at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg. Though my undergraduate background is in creative writing and philosophy, I am primarily an avian ecologist and my present research focuses on the effects of energy development on nest survival in prairie songbirds. Broadly speaking, I feel that the most important applications of ecology are conservation and sustainable development. The need to balance human interests with those of non-human species is a persistent problem both in natural resource management and in my personal life, and I believe that conservation will only succeed as an inclusive process where stakeholders are given proper incentives. 

Indigenous Peoples’ Rights to Food and the Coca-Cola Industry

Coca Leaf (courtesy of Marcello Casal Jr, wikimedia commons)

I grew up drinking Coke. Now that I am more health conscious, I don’t drink Coca-Cola or any other drinks that have a long list of ingredients I can't identify, let alone pronounce. My interest in Indigenous peoples rights to food revealed another reason to turn down a can of coke. Coca-Cola production is part of a history that has empowered Western companies at the expense of Indigenous people and their rights to culturally important food and medicine. Let me explain.

Coca-Cola is a drink that entered the global market economy in 1886. At that time it was a drink made of cocaine, caffeine, cola nut extracts, and carbonated water. In 1903, there were some concerns raised about putting cocaine in soda. So, the cocaine in Coca-Cola was replaced by a de-cocainized flavouring ingredient. Both the cocaine and de-cocainized ingredient come from the leaves of a plant called Coca native to the South American Andes.

The coca plant is not the same as the drug cocaine. Coca is a plant Erythroxylum coca and cocaine is a naturally occurring alkaloid found in this plant. To produce the drug called cocaine you need large amounts of coca leaves (e.g., 1 kilo of cocaine requires 2-3 hundred kilos of coca leaf). Cocaine production also requires many other harmful chemicals, including sulphuric acid, petrol, and caustic soda. Coca leaves contain a very small amount of the naturally-occurring alkaloid cocaine and this small amount does not induce toxicity or dependence, a 1978 scientific study reported.

Indigenous peoples of the Andes make use of coca leaves in their natural form, without chemical processing. For example, the Quechua, Aymara, and Kogi people use the coca leaf for medicinal and ceremonial purposes. I will never forget a skilled Bolivian healer who cured me with coca leaves. I had been suffering from a severe allergic reaction to my contact with alpaca fur (picture on the right). This allergy persisted for weeks and Western medicine was not helping. This healer, in La Paz Bolivia, taught me to chew the coca leaf to extract its natural anesthetic properties and to place the partially chewed leaf where my allergy was manifesting. Within a few minutes I felt relief and within a few days my allergic reaction was almost invisible. Unfortunately, stories such my own, which reveal coca as a powerful medicine, have been dwarfed by the global discourse equating the coca plant with chemically processed drugs.

One of the reasons we equate the coca plant with the drug cocaine is because the coca leaf has been classified as such in international conventions. In 1961, the United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Substances classified the coca leaf a Schedule I substance and since then its production, use, and trade have been under very strict regulation. For countries that signed onto this UN convention - such as Bolivia - this strict regulation has infiltrated all aspects of peoples’ coca use: from its sale and trade to Indigenous peoples' rights to chew coca leaves for medicinal purposes. Angela Heitzeneder (2010), scholar on cultural rights of Indigenous people in international law, described this UN convention as a global "intolerance toward the essential element of Andean traditional society and cosmology".

If this convention did not protect the right of Indigenous peoples to use coca, surely nobody else could use it either, right? Actually, no. The United Nation’s convention made sure that the famous soda pop Coca-Cola, and the companies involved in its production, were able to continue harvesting, using, and distributing coca.

The use of coca leaves for the production of the Coca-Cola flavouring agent is a permanent exception to the international prohibition against coca. The Stephan Company of Maywood in New Jersey imports around 175,000 kg of coca leaves from Trujillo, Peru each year to produce flavoured chemicals for Coke.

I have struggled to make sense of this. The cultural rights to use coca for ceremony and health were ignored in the 1961 UN convention on narcotics while the rights to produce a soda pop were protected?

If you remember, the Coca-Cola company buys de-cocainized extracts from coca leaves, a.k.a., "de-cocainized flavour essence", from the Stephan Company of Maywood in New Jersey. In the process of de-cocainizing, the Maywood company end up with cocaine by-product. Believe it or not, this U.S. company also has rights to sell this extracted cocaine to international medical practitioners to be used as an anesthetic.

It is hard to believe that U.S. companies have been profiting from the flavour and medicinal uses of coca while Indigenous People have been internationally denied the right to do so. This scenario is even harder to believe knowing that both the Coca-Cola company and western medical practitioners would not know the health properties of Coca without the knowledge and skills of Indigenous people.

In 2011 the Bolivian President Evo Morales challenged what has been called a “historical error and violation of Indigenous rights” by Martin Jelsm, the director of The Transnational Institute’s Drugs and Democracy program. Evo Morales withdrew from the 1961 UN convention in part because of his opposition to the convention’s obligation that “coca leaf chewing must be abolished”. Just this year, Bolivia celebrated their re-entry into the UN convention with an exception made to respect Bolivian peoples’ coca chewing practices.

With the exception of Bolivia’s small victory, Indigenous peoples rights to use and benefit from a cultural plant are still being infringed upon. At the same time large U.S. companies are encouraged to use, distribute, and make towering profits from the coca industry. I believe this disparity is perhaps the most powerful reason to turn down a can of Coca-Cola. In the meantime, I’ll wait for Bolivia’s Coca-Colla to hit Canadian markets. 

Read more:

Heitzeneder, A. 2010. The Coca-leaf: Miracle good or social menace? Masters Thesis, Universitat wien, accessed at: http://othes.univie.ac.at/12287/1/2010-11-04_0421153.pdf

Corn Smut, Cuitlacoche or Mexican Truffle, is there a difference?

Courtesy of Stu Spivak, wikimedia commons

On August 9th the world will celebrate the United Nations International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples. I am celebrating early and paying my deep respects to the foods Indigenous farmers developed. One of those foods is a fungus called Cuitlacoche. 

If you have eaten in Mexico, you may have tried this tasty fungus creeping out of the ears of corn. Cuitlacoche (Ustilago maydis), is pronounced cuitla-KO-che or Huitlacoche (with a silent H). The Spanish name Cuitacoche is adapted from a Nahuatl name and my internet searches tell me the closest literal English translation for this word might be something like "Sleeping/Hibernating Dirt/Excrement". 

What's in a name?  

One reason why this Nahuatl name is important is because it tells us about this fungus's cultural roots. Nahuatl is the language of Nahua peoples (also known as Aztec people) whose speakers reside mainly in communities of Central Mexico.The Nahua were likely one of the first peoples to describe the fungus Cuitlacoche. 

I must disclose, the first time I tried Cuitlacoche was in Washington D.C., not in Mexico. Like many big cities, the D.C. foodscape is diverse and finding a Cuitlacoche quesadilla was surprisingly easy. All I had to do was take a trip to Adams Morgan and there I was quickly drawn into a quaint Mexican restaurant adorned with beautiful posters of Puebla and Pozole. When I saw Cuitlacoche quesadillas on the menu, I took the plunge. While explaining that Cuitlacoche has a strong flavour, the owner politely tried to sway my decision to the tacos or the tortas mexicanas. I insisted on the Cuitlacoche. 

Courtesy of Cuauhtemoc Ramirez, wikimedia commons 

I had a tecate and talked to the owner about Colima, a small state in Mexico where I lived about 10 years ago. Shortly into our conversation, I was presented with Cuitlacoche fungus in between two handmade corn tortillas. If I didn't look close enough I could have mistaken it for black refried beans. Upon close inspection I noticed tiny yellow corn kernels mixed into a dark purple mash called Cuitlacoche. 

I loved it, it had a hearty, earthy taste, it was not too overpowering, and it went surprisingly well with salsa and guacamole. 

As I ate, I wondered if my Cuitlacoche was grown locally or was shipped from Mexico. Although it may come as a surprise, Cuitlacoche is grown in the U.S. by many farmers, but not on purpose. Cuitlachoche in the U.S. is considered a disease called Corn Smut. Because Corn Smut is a U.S. pest, non-Indigenous farmers there spend their time thinking about killing, not cooking, this fungus. I felt safe to say the fungus on my plate in Washington D.C. was imported.

Cuitlacoche in a Oaxaca supermarket, wikimedia commons

Out of curiosity, I asked the owner where he gets his Cuitlacoche. "You can get anything in D.C.", he answered, looking shocked that I didn't know this fact. In Mexico, I had seen this fungus sold fresh, but he told me in D.C. it comes packaged, conveniently, in a can. This explains why you can order Cuitlacoche in many places and in many different dishes, including soups, crepes, and even fondues. 

As foodies transform Indigenous food recipes, their food names can change. Food enthusiasts are looking for an English name, beyond Corn Smut, to describe Cuitlacoche. Mexican Truffle and Aztec Caviar have been suggested. I agree with foodies that the name Corn Smut does not sound appetizing, but what is wrong with the Nahuatl name? Why are we searching for names that detach foods from their Indigenous roots? 

My vote is to keep the name Cuitlacoche. When Cuitlacoche becomes the Mexican Truffle we lose track of this fungus's history. The name Cuitlacoche links us to a people and a rich history of food tradtions. The name Mexican Truffle, like the label "Mexican Cuisine", tells us nothing about the diversity of foods and peoples within a region. The name Aztec Caviar is more culturally-descriptive. But the name Aztec Caviar still removes the Nahualt lanuage from the picture. 

There is something to be said for using an Indigenous word when ordering a food. When I ask for a Cuitlacoche quesadilla I articulate diversity using different sounds. When I hear these unique sounds, like "cui" or "tla", I am eager to learn the stories behind them. When I ask for Aztec Caviar, I can easily mistake this name for a quirky English label and not give a second thought to its first farmers. 

When I eat, whether in a city or around a fire far from urban life, I remember Indigenous farmers. I remember the foods their ancestors developed and I respect the foods Indigenous farmers produce for us today. Without Indigenous peoples, none of us new-age foodies know about Cuitlacoche. Let's celebrate the World's Indigenous Peoples and call Indigenous foods by their first names. 

______

Does anyone have a story about the Nahuatl word Cuitlacoche or about how this fungus is prepared by Nahua and other Indigenous peoples? If so, please share it in the comments section below. 

Do you know where your bananas come from?

Although this blog post has been on my mind for months, I did not write it in fear of doing the topic an injustice. How can words on a page possibly bring you to the root of the banana industry where women, men, and children engage in risky and consistently hard labour to bring the perfect unblemished banana to our tables? The longer I sit on this story, the more important I realize it is. So here is my story, based on eight months working with bananas.

When we want a banana the furthest most of us have to travel is to the grocery store. But, this convenience is not without costs. Save for a small label that identifies the country of origin, we have no idea about the farms our bananas come from. We also have no idea what farmers have sacrificed to produce a bushel of bananas. Buying organic satisfies many consumers and frees them of any guilt about unsustainable eating. Until 2012, I was one of those consumers who thought I was doing my best for farmers and the environment when buying organic.

Last year I realized the real danger of this assumption. I realized that the label organic tells us nothing about how banana companies treat banana farmers. I realized that organic bananas are bought and marketed mainly by Transnational Corporations and human rights aren’t necessarily one of their priorities, getting you to buy their organic banana is.

Traveling into these Talamanca Mountains, I did not expect to find the heart of Costa Rica's banana industry

In my experience I was farming organic bananas in a Southern Caribbean region of Costa Rica called Talamanca. I was working with Bribri Indigenous people who have lived in the country since time immemorial. In addition to being an Indigenous Territory this is arguably the most biodiverse region of Costa Rica and where you can find Costa Rica’s largest national park. This region is also hard to access, requiring boat, bus, and foot travel to arrive. Needless to say, when I moved to this remote and lush tropical forest, I did not expect to see large-scale banana farming.

 

Soils in Talamanca that have been organic since time immemorial

The first two questions I asked, when I unexpectedly found myself amidst a lot of bananas were: 1) With all the agricultural land in Costa Rica, why did organic banana companies choose to buy bananas from Talamanca? And 2) How was it cost-effective to export bananas through unpredictable rivers and hard to access roads?

On export day, twice a month, this rocky shore is buried under bananas to be transported to the capital city

As I recalled my research on organic farming, it dawned upon me. For organic bananas you need organic land, land that has not been exposed to chemical pesticides for at least three years. Unbeknownst to many, organic land is something that is hard to find in Costa Rica (because of widespread pesticide use). So, the fastest and cheapest way for companies to find organic land was likely to travel to Indigenous communities, deep into the forest where chemicals have never been used.

You don’t see anything wrong with the picture yet? Let’s dig a little deeper.

Do transnational banana companies pay Indigenous people fair wages?

No. An average farmer receives from 20-160 USD a month, far less than the Costa Rican minimum wage of 502 USD. A kg of bananas is bought for less than one-cent USD and sold – at my store – for about 20 times more.

Do banana companies recognize and respect traditional farming practices?

No. Although Bribri bananas are cropped alongside many other food and timber species, companies do not see this biocultural diversity as beneficial, they see it as getting in the way of profits. Consequently, company representatives have tried to coerce people to increase production (and decrease crop diversity) through training as well as with economic threats.

Fresh peach palm fruits, just one part of the rich crop diversity common on Bribri farms

Do companies have any liability if people get hurt or harmed on the job or do they compensate people if their bananas get lost during unpredictable river transport?

No and No.

As you can imagine, corporations are different and may not have the same modus operandi as the one I experienced in Costa Rica. However, other people’s experiences suggest that transnational corporations elsewhere are similarly concerned with profit increase and similarly disinterested in human rights. My experiences demonstrate that buying organic is not enough to free us of our social and environmental eating responsibilities.

After moving home from Talamanca, it is safe to say that I do not necessarily support large banana companies that simply label their products as organic . When I do buy bananas – and other exotic foods like coffee or chocolate - I look for equal exchange or other fairly traded products. 

Eating in the Forest: 2012 Highlights

I am back in North America, breathing the fresh and cool air, after an adventure-filled year in tropical Costa Rica. Although I am recuperating from changing seasons, a diet change is by far my most interesting adjustment. As I re-experience winter comfort crops, I reminisce about how different my diet was only days ago when I was foraging in and around a lush tropical rainforest.

Here are my 2012 forest food highlights (all are organic!):

1. CHOCOLATE

Cacao beans - these seeds can be eaten or ground into a paste to make hot chocolate, we flavoured it with fresh ginger.

100% pure cacao - this hand-ground paste is ready to be boiled into pure hot chocolate.

2. PEACH PALM

Peach Palm fruit - these fruits are hung over a wood burning fire to give them a smoky and nutty taste.

Photo by Edder Francisco Diaz Segura

The whole peach palm is edible. I'm holding the inflorescence (eaten roasted) and the heart of palm and young flowers (white material) are cooked in this large green leaf.

3. BANANAS

Purple bananas - it is more sweet and filling than a standard yellow cavendish; Purple bananas are also the special ingredient in Armadillo stew.

One versatile banana - this sweet dessert banana can be eaten as a snack or boiled when unripe to add to a meal; here I was eating this banana with wild greens and eggs.

Roasted bananas - my favorite afternoon snack with a cup of hot chocolate.

4. SIMPLICITY

Stone-ground corn (we did the grinding by hand) - how often can you make corn tortillas or cornbread from scratch? All you need is corn, water, and a couple stones.

Simple yet satisfying